What Now?

[Balta1701]

4 minutes ago, OneDog847 said:

They are tanking this year! Losing 100 plus games and drafting in the top 3 again is preferable to losing 90 games and drafting 8th or 9th. They will probably lose 95 plus games again next year unless they spend big bucks in FA this offseason. 

What can be done? Continue to tank and stockpile top draft picks. This team needs to continue to stockpile elite young talent if they aren't going to pony up for any big time free agents. 

 

They should not be tanking this year, that's the problem. When we finished the trades in 2017, it seemed like 2019 was too ambitious to be competitive, but with the amount of talent we should have coming up we should have been at least making progress, and in 2020 we should have really been dangerous. Maybe not a playoff team in 2019, but at least having things clearly going the right way, because a number of guys should be up and having success. Even last offseason we were saying "2018 should be the low point". Being on pace to lose 95 games in 2020 means that the first attempt at rebuilding, the first round of talent, has completely flopped and utterly failed. That's a debacle on par with 2015-2016.

[Dick Allen]

The vast majority of this board thought the White Sox would be pretty decent by 2019, maybe even contention if you go back to when the big trades started happening. Michael Kopech being hurt shouldn't be the difference between being a halfway decent team or even a contending team, and one of the worst teams in baseball unless he is the most valuable pitcher of all time. Fangraphs had his ceiling as a #3 starter.

There is something wrong. It needs to be fixed as soon as possible. Unfortunately, the White Sox have the people who can't see problems in charge of finding and correcting them. You shouldn't be this far along and be saying, but we have this guy in A ball..............

Edited April 11, 2019 by Dick Allen

[OneDog847]

1 hour ago, Balta1701 said:

They should not be tanking this year, that's the problem. When we finished the trades in 2017, it seemed like 2019 was too ambitious to be competitive, but with the amount of talent we should have coming up we should have been at least making progress, and in 2020 we should have really been dangerous. Maybe not a playoff team in 2019, but at least having things clearly going the right way, because a number of guys should be up and having success. Even last offseason we were saying "2018 should be the low point". Being on pace to lose 95 games in 2020 means that the first attempt at rebuilding, the first round of talent, has completely flopped and utterly failed. That's a debacle on par with 2015-2016.

There is the way things should be and the way things really are. The rebuild is obviously a bit behind schedule. It doesn't take an advanced degree in sabermetrics to see that. 

2019 became another full on tank year once the Sox decided to not pony up for Machado/Harper. 

2020 should be better but it is still gonna be a real rough year as the Sox will be relying on a bunch of unproven arms in both the starting rotation and bullpen. Hopefully they pony up some cash or trade a prospect or two for a veteran arm that can anchor the rotation and bullpen. 

[Balta1701]

19 minutes ago, OneDog847 said:

There is the way things should be and the way things really are. The rebuild is obviously a bit behind schedule. It doesn't take an advanced degree in sabermetrics to see that. 

2019 became another full on tank year once the Sox decided to not pony up for Machado/Harper. 

2020 should be better but it is still gonna be a real rough year as the Sox will be relying on a bunch of unproven arms in both the starting rotation and bullpen. Hopefully they pony up some cash or trade a prospect or two for a veteran arm that can anchor the rotation and bullpen. 

And when 1 or 2 things go wrong in 2020 and a couple additional people struggle, we'll say that 2020 became another tank year and 2021 should be better. But we will never, ever, ever evaluate the quality of the people making those decisions, nor do we ask why things are behind schedule.

[OneDog847]

1 minute ago, Balta1701 said:

And when 1 or 2 things go wrong in 2020 and a couple additional people struggle, we'll say that 2020 became another tank year and 2021 should be better. But we will never, ever, ever evaluate the quality of the people making those decisions, nor do we ask why things are behind schedule.

Yep. It's called perpetually rebuilding and the possibility of it happening is all too real unfortuntately. 

A competent and with it owner should see the cracks in the rebuild foundation starting to show and would fire the Front Office and other responsible parties before the whole thing collapses. Alas, the likely of that happening with JR is zero. 

[Baron]

I think this year it's a good mix of horrible pitching from bad pitchers and bad coaching. There's nothing to do but ride it out this year and see what happens. 

Edited April 11, 2019 by Baron

[Greg Hibbard]

We are 11 games into a 162 game season.

My sincere advice to boarders who are (understandably) extraordinarily frustrated is to not get wedded to a doom and gloom board persona wherein you are rationalizing your position that everything sucks for the remainder of this season. They might break out versus the Yanks this weekend. They might next week. Let's all just relax and let it happn.

Certainly, at some point, they're going to go through a stretch where they play much much better baseball than this.

There's no pressure on this team from a record standpoint - so who cares how many wins and losses we have?

Silver linings are in a bunch of places -

Gio's first start

Rodon's first AND second start

Moncada/Eloy/Anderson's great starts

Even identifying things like "Palka is a sure fire NON major leaguer" is way better than him dabbling with 20 home runs and a 0.8 WAR to have him hang around. Same goes for a player like Yolmer. The sooner we move on from placeholders, the better place we will be in medium term.

I'm gonna give it 30 games. I suggest everyone think about doing the same.

[mqr]

1 hour ago, OneDog847 said:

There is the way things should be and the way things really are. The rebuild is obviously a bit behind schedule. It doesn't take an advanced degree in sabermetrics to see that. 

2019 became another full on tank year once the Sox decided to not pony up for Machado/Harper. 

2020 should be better but it is still gonna be a real rough year as the Sox will be relying on a bunch of unproven arms in both the starting rotation and bullpen. Hopefully they pony up some cash or trade a prospect or two for a veteran arm that can anchor the rotation and bullpen. 

And people aren't and shouldn't think that is acceptable

[greg775]

2 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

They should not be tanking this year, that's the problem. When we finished the trades in 2017, it seemed like 2019 was too ambitious to be competitive, but with the amount of talent we should have coming up we should have been at least making progress, and in 2020 we should have really been dangerous. Maybe not a playoff team in 2019, but at least having things clearly going the right way, because a number of guys should be up and having success. Even last offseason we were saying "2018 should be the low point". Being on pace to lose 95 games in 2020 means that the first attempt at rebuilding, the first round of talent, has completely flopped and utterly failed. That's a debacle on par with 2015-2016.

Great post. Some fans will always have "wait til next year" to fall back on during hard times.

[greg775]

1 hour ago, Balta1701 said:

And when 1 or 2 things go wrong in 2020 and a couple additional people struggle, we'll say that 2020 became another tank year and 2021 should be better. But we will never, ever, ever evaluate the quality of the people making those decisions, nor do we ask why things are behind schedule.

Exactly. I just hope the fans stay away in droves. Cmon Sox fans. Go to one game this year if you must, but that's it. Don't support this nonsense. They're not moving. Forbes put that talk to rest.

[southsider2k5]

9 minutes ago, greg775 said:

Exactly. I just hope the fans stay away in droves. Cmon Sox fans. Go to one game this year if you must, but that's it. Don't support this nonsense. They're not moving. Forbes put that talk to rest.

Lead by example. 

[SpringfieldFan]

This may be the worst team in a generation or maybe just ran into a hot TB team, I don't know. The one thing I know for sure is that when you are going good you are not as good as you think and when you are going bad you are not as bad as you think...

[RTC]

2 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

They should not be tanking this year, that's the problem. When we finished the trades in 2017, it seemed like 2019 was too ambitious to be competitive, but with the amount of talent we should have coming up we should have been at least making progress, and in 2020 we should have really been dangerous. Maybe not a playoff team in 2019, but at least having things clearly going the right way, because a number of guys should be up and having success. Even last offseason we were saying "2018 should be the low point". Being on pace to lose 95 games in 2020 means that the first attempt at rebuilding, the first round of talent, has completely flopped and utterly failed. That's a debacle on par with 2015-2016.

Yes to all this.  I was thinking about how other teams just look a hell of a lot more competent.

- First of all, as for rebuilds, people seem to like to reference the Cubs and Astros.  Those are NOT comparable at all.  Those two organizations didn't just change the 25 man roster or upgrade their minor league talent.  They tore everything down to the studs, up to and including a new front office and building world class analytics departments.  Did it right.
- I thought the Tigers were supposed to be rebuilding.  I'm not even sure what moves they made, if any, but they seemed to have passed us by on the way to at least being competitive.
- Tigers again, and Indians.  Two mid-market teams that have had stretches of division winners while the Sox can't seem to get out of their own way.
- Mariners.  Whisky tango foxtrot.  It sure seems like they traded away their entire roster in the last five months, and I know it's early in the season, but I'll be damned if they don't look like they might be for real. 
- Look what the Phillies pulled off in one winter.
- Friars.  Enough said.
- I'm not sure what to call the A's or the Rays.  Are they always rebuilding?  Whatever they are, they are really small market teams that seem to be able to sprinkle in some competitive years.  Hahn hasn't even been able to pull that off.

And the worst part: none of those teams listed above had ANYWHERE NEAR the assets the Sox had to trade away to start a rebuild, let alone the surplus value attached to them because of extremely team friendly contracts.  This organization is a friggin clown show.

[Balta1701]

17 minutes ago, SpringfieldFan said:

This may be the worst team in a generation or maybe just ran into a hot TB team, I don't know. The one thing I know for sure is that when you are going good you are not as good as you think and when you are going bad you are not as bad as you think...

We'll see how this statement holds up, but right now I think they ran into a very good TB team, not just a hot one. Their lineup doesn't have stars but it is deep and has a lot of solid looking OBP numbers that, if they hold that up, will make them score runs. If Chirinos is as good as he has looked this year, then they have 3 strong young pitchers with a solid Charlie Morton in there, and their bullpen has the makings of a good one - it was top 10 ish in baseball last year by the basic stats (which are screwy for them due to the opener but anyway). 

I think one reason it's particularly annoying is that Tampa Bay looks so much better than us, they look like a competitive team, and they have a roster that on average is younger than us, it is cheaper than us, and they haven't had to spend 7 years below .500 to get that accumulation of talent. Maybe they're not going to hang with the big kids in the East all year, but Hell that roster already was a .500 team last year and it looks better this year. So, without a complete tear down and with far greater salary constraints, Tampa Bay has pulled off in 2-3 years what Rick Hahn hasn't been able to do in 7.

[Dick Allen]

The ran into a hot team is a great excuse. However, they lost 2 out of 3 to KC, and KC was so hot they haven't won another game.

[OneDog847]

1 hour ago, RTC said:

Yes to all this.  I was thinking about how other teams just look a hell of a lot more competent.

- First of all, as for rebuilds, people seem to like to reference the Cubs and Astros.  Those are NOT comparable at all.  Those two organizations didn't just change the 25 man roster or upgrade their minor league talent.  They tore everything down to the studs, up to and including a new front office and building world class analytics departments.  Did it right.
- I thought the Tigers were supposed to be rebuilding.  I'm not even sure what moves they made, if any, but they seemed to have passed us by on the way to at least being competitive.
- Tigers again, and Indians.  Two mid-market teams that have had stretches of division winners while the Sox can't seem to get out of their own way.
- Mariners.  Whisky tango foxtrot.  It sure seems like they traded away their entire roster in the last five months, and I know it's early in the season, but I'll be damned if they don't look like they might be for real. 
- Look what the Phillies pulled off in one winter.
- Friars.  Enough said.
- I'm not sure what to call the A's or the Rays.  Are they always rebuilding?  Whatever they are, they are really small market teams that seem to be able to sprinkle in some competitive years.  Hahn hasn't even been able to pull that off.

And the worst part: none of those teams listed above had ANYWHERE NEAR the assets the Sox had to trade away to start a rebuild, let alone the surplus value attached to them because of extremely team friendly contracts.  This organization is a friggin clown show.

The Sox roster is just lacking in talent. The roster is full of replacement level players and AAAA guys. Out of a 25 man roster there are only 7 guys who seem like they truly belong in major league baseball.  

• Carlos Rodon
• Jose Abreu
• Tim Anderson
• Yoan Moncada
• Eloy Jimenez ( based on minor league numbers and hype) 
• Alex Colome
• Kelvin Herrera 

Everyone else is pretty much a waste of time and roster space. 

 

 

 

[Lillian]

The Sox have scored the following number of runs, in each of their games, so far:

3, 6, 6, 3, 8, 8, 2, 5, 1, 5, 1

That's 6 of 11 games in which they have scored 5 runs, or more. They could at least be around .500, with decent pitching. From that perspective, it doesn't look quite so bad. However, they need to address the pitching, or this season could be another "tank". 

With both Dunning and Kopech out for the year, and Cease not likely to be called up, until late in the season, if at all, I really think that they need to add another veteran, on a one year deal. Their plan was to have a couple of veterans, in the starting rotation, and that makes sense. However, do we really have any confidence that Santana, or maybe even Nova are going to be serviceable? Santana had nothing in his first start, no velocity and no movement. It was like he was throwing batting practice. 

The more that I think about it, the more that I like the idea of signing Keuchel. Again, let both Santana and Nova battle for one spot, with the loser becoming the long man, out of the pen. Banuelos becomes a LOOGY and potentially someone who could pitch to both RH and LH hitters, in relief. Insert Keuchel into the rotation, take the pressure off of Giolito and Lopez, and things just might stabilize. 

Management has plenty of payroll flexibility and Keuchel has already expressed a willingness to take a one year deal. There is no one on the farm, who is ready to assume a spot in the rotation. Sign him, and trade him to a contender, at the deadline. That timing might coincide with Cease's call up. Why not?

. 

Edited April 11, 2019 by Lillian

[OneDog847]

9 minutes ago, Lillian said:

The Sox have scored the following number of runs, in each of their games, so far:

3, 6, 6, 3, 8, 8, 2, 5, 1, 5, 1

That's 6 of 11 games in which they have scored 5 runs, or more. They could at least be around .500, with decent pitching. From that perspective, it doesn't look quite so bad. However, they need to address the pitching, or this season could be another "tank". 

With both Dunning and Kopech out for the year, and Cease not likely to be called up, until late in the season, if at all, I really think that they need to add another veteran, on a one year deal. Their plan was to have a couple of veterans, in the starting rotation, and that makes sense. However, do we really have any confidence that Santana, or maybe even Nova are going to be serviceable? He had nothing in his first start, no velocity and no movement. It was like he was throwing batting practice. 

The more that I think about it, the more that I like the idea of signing Keuchel. Again, let both Santana and Nova battle for one spot, with the loser becoming the long man, out of the pen. Banuelos becomes a LOOGY and potentially someone who could pitch to both RH and LH hitters, in relief. Insert Keuchel into the rotation, take the pressure off of Giolito and Lopez, and things just might stabilize. 

Management has plenty of payroll flexibility and Keuchel has already expressed a willingness to take a one year deal. There is no one on the farm, who is ready to assume a spot in the rotation. Sign him, and trade him to a contender, at the deadline. That timing might coincide with Cease's call up. Why not?

. 

Dallas Kuechel ain't happening. That ship sailed when they didn't sign Machado. Let youngsters like Banuelos, Covey, Adams, Stephens get a look if/when Santana/Nova fall apart. 

Also, 2019 is most defintely a tank year. No need to use quotations lol. 

 

[Lillian]

12 minutes ago, OneDog847 said:

Dallas Kuechel ain't happening. That ship sailed when they didn't sign Machado. Let youngsters like Banuelos, Covey, Adams, Stephens get a look if/when Santana/Nova fall apart. 

Also, 2019 is most defintely a tank year. No need to use quotations lol. 

 

So, you are in favor of tanking again, right?

[RTC]

38 minutes ago, OneDog847 said:

The Sox roster is just lacking in talent. The roster is full of replacement level players and AAAA guys. Out of a 25 man roster there are only 7 guys who seem like they truly belong in major league baseball.  

• Carlos Rodon
• Jose Abreu
• Tim Anderson
• Yoan Moncada
• Eloy Jimenez ( based on minor league numbers and hype) 
• Alex Colome
• Kelvin Herrera 

Everyone else is pretty much a waste of time and roster space. 

Exactly my point.  When it comes to putting players on the field who are better at doing baseball things, a lot of other organizations appear to be better at their job.

[SoxFanForever]

37 minutes ago, OneDog847 said:

Dallas Kuechel ain't happening. That ship sailed when they didn't sign Machado. Let youngsters like Banuelos, Covey, Adams, Stephens get a look if/when Santana/Nova fall apart. 

Also, 2019 is most defintely a tank year. No need to use quotations lol. 

 

Banuelos is 28 and Covey will be 28 this season.  I don't really think they count as "youngsters" at this point.  They are just placeholders.

[Iwritecode]

What now? I think we'll all pretty much do what we've been doing these last several years...

 

Edited April 11, 2019 by Iwritecode

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

14 hours ago, Lillian said:

The front office sees the same things that we do. They're likely already preparing to bring Cordell back up, after his quick start, both with the Sox and the Knights. Note that no one was clamoring for Cordell to be in the line up, before last nights 5 for 5, while hitting for the cycle and winning the game. Some of this criticism seems like "Monday morning quarterbacking". An organization which is filled with lots of good prospects is bound to have many instances where the right decisions will be difficult. Another case in point is that 3 of our top outfield prospects are all hitting around .100, at the top of the Baron's lineup. Time will sort out many of these kinds of anomalies. and issues.

However, it's also not prudent to hastily react to every game, or even series, in evaluating who should get playing time. The less of a track record a player has, the more difficult these decisions are. After last season, how many would have been so eager to send Palka back down to AAA? The guy had a good rookie year and came into camp 20 pounds lighter, and has worked hard on his defense, all of which could reasonably be expected to help him take another step forward. His slow start is disappointing. 

Few of these early performances, by various players, both good and bad, are not necessarily indicative of what we should expect, going forward. Robert and Collins are not going to hit 100 home runs each and Palka is not going to go 0 for 500. The point is simply that it's too early to conclude anything. I enjoy following all of these dynamic elements of the organization's roster, but I try not to over react to any of them. 

Ahh but Palka had the spring training injury and he has been behind ever since and without regular AB's like he could get in the minors he shouldn't be up here.When you are talking about guys Cordell and Palka's age and looking to find a keeper the Sox cannot waste time babying one at the ML level. Like fathom said we will be facing lefties over the weekend.I know you love your lefties and in the past I have always agreed with you that we need more power hitters from the left side but I also prefer them to be able to do more than just hit HR's such as play defense and run well. That's not always possible but it should be when you are talking about an OF .

[greg775]

9 hours ago, SpringfieldFan said:

This may be the worst team in a generation or maybe just ran into a hot TB team, I don't know. The one thing I know for sure is that when you are going good you are not as good as you think and when you are going bad you are not as bad as you think...

Yes but the fact we were so lousy at home is not a good sign ... again.

[Lillian]

Just to clarify, what exactly is the objective, for this season? I understand that the Sox want to see progress from their young core. However, do they actually want to win games, or would they prefer to compile another 100 loss season, with the intent of acquiring another top draft pick?

If they intend to actually try to win games, I believe that they are going to have to address the starting rotation. Not only does it appear that it lacks quality and depth, but it is potentially going to exhaust the bullpen. The starters must be capable of going at least 6 innings, on a consistent basis. These early blow outs are not only going to tax the pen, but they are going to demoralize the rest of the team.

Next year, with the additions of Cease and Kopech, they should be fine. However, this season could be very difficult. At this point, maybe they need to give Covey and Fulmer another look. I'm most worried about Santana  and wonder if he really still has anything left, in that veteran arm of his. Nova looks like his usual self and can probably eat innings, and get ground ball outs. Rodon, Giolito and Lopez need to pitch and should improve, as the season progresses. And then, there is always the chance that Banuelos could take the 5TH spot.

What can they do with Santana? Could they have him work as the long man, until he can demonstrate that he can throw something better than 90 mph, straight fast balls? His first outing of the year looked like he was throwing batting practice. He's the perfect guy, if the objective is to tank, again.

Edited April 12, 2019 by Lillian